LIVINGSTON TWP. -- New Otsego County assistant prosecutor John Vella’s interests include boxing and hockey -- he boxed while an undergraduate student at Eastern Michigan University -- but what the 28-year-old graduate of Thomas M. Cooley Law School really loves is his new job.

GAYLORD -- Library cardholders can lounge in a hammock or chair and read a book at a number of state parks across Michigan this summer -- all for free -- under a new “Park and Read” program.

LIVINGSTON TWP. -- Although high profile embezzlement cases in Otsego County have dominated the headlines of late -- last year Sherrie Schuster (Downtown Development Authority) and Shelly Patterson (Diocese of Gaylord) each embezzled around $300,000, and this year from Great Lakes Energy in Charlevoix County an alleged $2 million embezzled by a Gaylord couple -- county prosecutor Kyle Legel said the actual number of embezzlement prosecutions over the past several years has been fairly consistent.

To view the Recovery Act at work in your community please click on one of the counties from the county map here.

• Local businesses mostly booming over holiday
• UPDATED: Fire destroys Melrose home
• Petoskey council to consider new electric program and fees for supporting it
• State police apprehend ATM thief
• GOP slams prisoner release flap

• Local businesses mostly booming over holiday
• Emmet-Charlevoix fair alive and well
• Public hearing on One Water Street
• Bomber pilot back in skies after 67 years
• Greener living at Iron Horse Farms